January started her career as a stunt double in low-budget horror flicks. She discovered her talent for murder by accident: a co-star bullied a makeup artist so cruelly that January, enraged and impulsive, added a dash of rat poison to the actor’s pre-show meal.
The actor collapsed on set, mid-performance. The death seemed sudden and inexplicable - tragic but mundane. No one realised that January had sabotaged the food, and the set was shut down for investigation.
From that moment, she became obsessed with murder - both committing it and understanding it. January moved quickly between sets, never lingering long enough to be suspicious when a death inevitably occurred. She learned quickly that subtlety was safer than spectacle. Poison suited her instincts: it left fewer obvious traces, and ensured that suspicion scattered instead of pointing cleanly at one person. A crowded kitchen, a bustling premiere - there were always explanations.
But despite her care, people began to notice coincidences surrounding January’s presence. After narrowly escaping detection multiple times, she discovered a safer outlet: writing. January began penning crime fiction, using her insider knowledge of murder to craft stories so authentic they chilled readers to the bone. She claimed her novels were purely imaginative, but they often mirrored real-life crimes.
But in her passion for writing, January inadvertently orchestrated her own downfall. One detective noticed similarities in January’s stories to real unsolved crimes. He started asking inconvenient questions, like how she knew details of the cases that hadn’t been released to the public.
January knew she was caught, so she vanished. She slipped through a planar tear during her escape - which led straight to the grounds of Strixhaven. Strixhaven administrators, recognizing her potential, accepted her into classes as a new student. To them, she’s just an odd, charismatic transfer student with a suspiciously high knowledge of forensics, poisons, and a flair for dramatic storytelling.
At Strixhaven, January channels her obsession with death into crime fiction. Her stories are dark, gripping, and disturbingly realistic, earning her attention among Silverquill students. To most, she is simply an eccentric, brilliant writer with a flair for the macabre; to those who look closer, she is the author and the star of the stories she tells.